


Release all the sounds trapped inside your mind (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA)

by Kippysaurus



Series: The dangers of playing volleyball with superpowers [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Powers, Anxious Azumane Asahi, Best-friend-communication is a thing, Gen, Hints of Daisuga, Kiyoko learns how to be a manager, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Third Years as First Years, aihara is a good friend, dont question it, he’ll get better (then get worse) then get better, perhaps there will be slowburn asanoya, shame literally nobody knows who she is, suga and daichi are they yakuza?, this things gonna be lonnnnng, undecided - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kippysaurus/pseuds/Kippysaurus
Summary: Asahi knows he’s a scaredy-cat. He knows.It's hard not to when the second you feel a tiny twinge of anxiety, everyone else can as well.—Or in which I tried to write the dateko match but with powers and instead ended up doing an asahi-centric fic about the third years as first years.The dateko match will happen eventually though I swear!
Relationships: Azumane Asahi & Aihara Mao, Azumane Asahi & Sawamura Daichi & Sugawara Koushi, Sawamura Daichi & Shimizu Kiyoko
Series: The dangers of playing volleyball with superpowers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007445
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. The beginning

Asahi knows he’s a scaredy-cat. He knows.

It's hard not to when the second you feel a tiny twinge of anxiety, everyone else can as well.   


Perhaps he should’ve worked on that during middle school, but in his defense he was a bit busy learning not to be scared of himself and his abilities.

Because he managed to  _ also _ get the power to turn invisible more or less at will. How helpful that was for convincing people they should be friends.

Everyone knows of the existence of superpowered people, of course, and while on paper they are supportive of them, in person it is quite often a whole different story.

So when he gets a letter from Karasuno High School in his third year (which happens to have a final paragraph reading something like ‘we’ll help you control your powers so you don’t go around scaring everyone you come into contact with‘) Asahi’s heart jumps with an emotion which isn’t fear. It might even be joy?

His parents are pleased for him, of course (our son, going to a prestigious school!) but somewhere in his mind Asahi thinks they also look a bit relieved. 

Relieved their freak of a child is going somewhere to be trained out of his freakish ways? Relieved they don’t have to deal with him when he’s panicking, which he knows from experience makes everyone around him very on edge? Relieved a government agency hasn’t painted a target on their son’s head? Asahi doesn’t know, and he’s not inclined to ask.

Either way, despite the underlying fear his parents hate him, Asahi’s last month at middle school pass much quicker than usual. A couple of teachers even remark he seems much less fearful than usual, which is probably a welcome change for them as well. They must be glad to have him out of their hands.

————————

Asahi is wrong. All the teachers absolutely love him. In the quiets of the staff room, they whisper things like, “What a shame Azumane’s leaving, he was such a sweet boy,” and “Where do you think he’s going for high school? He seems to be so happy at the minute!” 

Asahi’s middle school teachers are the founding members of the ‘Protect Azumane Asahi’ group.They have a notebook which writes down any new members that join. Not that Azumane Asahi has any idea of this fact.

————————-

Then the final day comes, and Asahi leaves his middle school looking forward to the day where he can walk into a room and not make everyone on edge. 

At some point during the first week of happiness, as he’s now calling it, Asahi decides to grow his hair out. By his first day at Karasuno, it’s long enough to tie back in a short ponytail. Asahi distantly feels like one of those princes in the foreign movies- Disney maybe?

Asahi wakes up and looks at the alarm clock on his bedside table. 8:40. He’s late. For his first day of school. He runs downstairs, still half-dressed, starts haphazardly making breakfast while getting his bag packed.

He’s out of the door before realising he doesn’t actually know how to get to Karasuno, then runs back inside to find the email with instructions in. As he rushes to find his phone he goes past a mirror and briefly notes his hair is a mess. 

There’s no time to worry about that though, when things like ‘how the hell do I get to school in 20 minutes’ take precedent.

Asahi finds his phone, takes a deep, calming breath- and sprints out the front door for the second time that day. He hears the start of his mum saying something to him. It sounded like, “Asahi, dear, it’s…” but he closed the door before he could hear exactly what it was.

Now, Asahi may be afraid of being late, but he is equally as fearful of deciding to take a bus (the faster form of transport as opposed to running) and the bus running late, or getting stuck in traffic while he can’t get off it, or being involved in a collision. So instead he memorises the way to Karasuno and takes off in a dead sprint.

Asahi’s nerves have been shot all morning so as he runs down each street, every man, woman and animal finds whatever task they’re doing infinitely more hard for 15 seconds, as they are momentarily frozen in place by fear. 

Hopefully nobody was doing ironing, or in the middle of pouring tea.

15 minutes later, an extremely tired Asahi turns the final corner towards Karasuno… and finds the school grounds deserted, save for two boys who definitely aren’t in school uniform.

One of them calls out to him, the shorter one, with silvery hair, “Hey! You are aware it’s Sunday, right?”

—————————

When Sawamura Daichi first sees the tall, gangster-looking boy round the corner at high speed, he fears for his life.

Who in their right mind  _ wouldn’t  _ be intimidated by someone who looked so wild? Dark brown hair tied behind his head in a low-ponytail but flying out everywhere, an angry looking stare— and the aura which practically screams  _ fear me, puny mortal!  _

However when his friend of roughly two minutes, Suga, calls out to the guy, Daichi realises another thing. He’s in school uniform, on a Sunday.

His fear of the boy immediately decreases, as he puts some pieces together. Namely, that the guy must’ve got the day wrong, and has now wilted to a less intimidating height, and a sheepish expression.

Daichi now also realises his aura of  _ fear me, puny mortal!  _ has decreased, meaning that a) his power is something fear-based, and b) it was the guy himself being scared of everything which caused the aura.

“A-ah, no, I hadn’t noticed, thank you for telling me.” His voice has the ability to be terrifying, but instead is surprisingly soft, like a gentle wind could blow it away. Daichi goes to move forwards to shake his hand, but feels both legs and his right arm freeze up and take on the roughness of the concrete he is currently standing on.

So instead Daichi says, “I would move over to introduce myself, but I’m a bit stuck at the minute,” he gestures to himself with the arm he can move, hoping the boy can figure out his meaning. “Mind moving a bit closer so we can introduce ourselves properly?”

The boy regards him suspiciously (fair enough, it’s a strange request) but moves towards the duo. He walks like he’s trying to curl up into himself, and Daichi’s heart melts slightly.

Suga, an angel that Daichi has discovered him to be in their short friendship, starts the introductions. “I’m Sugawara Koushi, first year! Everyone calls me Suga! Nice to meet ya!” He winks at the end of his sentence, which Daichi doesn’t entirely understand the reasoning for, but he supposes it makes Suga seem cute.

He then follows up with, “Sawamura Daichi, also first year, friends call me Daichi. Yo.”

The boy briefly notes that there are in fact only three people here and so rushes to introduce himself. “Azumane Asahi, first year,” Daichi sneakily covers a cough by swallowing it, “Um, nobody’s ever really called me by anything that’s not my surname, but you can call me Asahi if you want?”

His voice turns ever-so-slightly optimistic at the end of this sentence, and Daichi’s heart, already melted, turns into a puddle on the floor for this poor, nervous, gangster-looking boy whose internal screaming could probably wake the dead.

He and Suga look towards each other, nod, and simultaneously say, “Hi Asahi! Let’s be friends!” Like they’re all back to being 11 again.

——————

Daichi and Suga unknowingly join the Protect Azumane Asahi group. One of the teachers, with the power of contracts-a Karasuno alumnus themself- feels two more names appear on their notebook.

At the next break, they show the names off to all the other members. “Azumane’s gained friends!”

——————-

Asahi feels his heart warm when Daichi and Suga announce themselves as his friends.

He also feels his face warm, but that’s par for the course so he doesn’t worry about it.

“So, um, now we’re friends, what do we do?” Asahi doesn’t fully know. Sure, he’s had friends but they never hung out outside of school.

Daichi and Suga look at each other. They’re apparently good enough friends to have best-friend telepathy— that or Suga’s power is telepathy.

Suga looks towards him, and smiles disarmingly. “No, I’m not telepathic. My power is something else entirely.” Asahi is unconvinced. If his power isn’t telepathy, how did he know Asahi was thinking about him being telepathic?

“Listen, to convince you, all I need to do is touch your arm. You okay with that?” Asahi looks into Suga’s eyes and sees nothing deceptive there. Behind him, Daichi is working on moving his right arm, but seems to have paused to see Suga’s power in action.

Huh. Maybe they weren’t as good friends as Asahi had thought.

Either way, he shoves up his gakuran sleeve, and Suga takes off one glove. There’s a light touch on his arm, and he feels all of his nervousness drain out of him. He briefly wonders what it feels like to live like he is right now.

Daichi, on the other hand, seems to have experienced the onset of fear. “Suga! Where did you go?”

“He’s still here somewhere.. he’s just kinda invisible..” Daichi turns his stare on Asahi, and Asahi wishes that Suga didn’t currently have control of his power so he could use his own vanishing trick.

Daichi is scary when concerned.

“What do you mean by ‘kinda invisible’, Asahi?” While Asahi may be thrilled at someone using his first name, fear for his life wins out.

“T-two powers. Fear and invisibility. Suga must’ve lost control of the second one because he didn’t know it was there. I’m sorry!” Asahi bows to Daichi, who for some reason has the face of ‘I done fucked up’.

“Surely if he doesn’t have control over the fear either, we’d be able to sense him based on that?” Daichi then says, much calmer than last time.

“Uhm.. as far as I know when I go invisible, it stops most emotions from being broadcast. Apparently the fear is one of them?”

Daichi sighs, and briefly gains about 20 years. Asahi can’t help but picture him as someone with 3 toddlers who just wants to sleep.

“So. Do you think there’s any way to get him out of it sooner?” Daichi’s tired face turns towards him, and Asahi feels strangely resigned to being the weird uncle.

“I wouldn’t know, haven’t you known Suga longer?”

“Yeah, by about two minutes! This is the first time he’s shown me his power and I lost him!” Asahi’s face probably displays the fact he thought the two had known each other for years.

Daichi locks eyes with him and snorts. Yup, it was written all over his face. They sit in silence for half a minute, then Daichi ventures, “Do you wanna play a game?”

—————————

The two get to K in the ‘I went to the shops and I bought’ game before Suga reappears.

It’s Asahi’s turn to recall random objects and through this game he’s learned that Daichi has an imagination to rival his own, but is usually used in better ways.

“Okay, um. I went to the shops and I bought an avocado, breakdancing monkeys, cards, donuts, extra hot sauce, frogspawn, gari-gari-kuns, an iceberg, jelly and…”

A voice behind him says, “Cuttlefish!” And Asahi immediately tells the voice that no, cuttlefish is spelt with a C.

He then realises the voice didn’t sound like Daichi’s and turns around to see Suga. 

Daichi, thankfully able to move now, jumps at the two of them. “Hi again Suga!”

“Hi Daichi, hi Asahi,” Suga says, and why is Asahi so pleased to hear his given name? “Sorry for the scare. But I guess I proved I’m not a mind-reader, huh?”

Asahi laughs at that and nods his agreement. His stomach rumbles as well, and since he is the one in charge of his own power, he goes slightly see-through.

Or at least he assumes he does, because Daichi pokes him in the stomach and tells him not to disappear on him as well.

“Sorry about that, running here must’ve stolen my energy. Wanna go to a store and get something to eat?” Asahi asks, more because it is polite than because he wants to spend his time with two people that probably are only being nice to him because he interrupted their friend-making process.

The two agree quickly though, so Asahi finds himself walking in search of a store with two people he didn’t know ten minutes ago. Not how he imagined his first day of ‘school’ going.

They find a small shop that Asahi had probably run by earlier, called Sakanoshita. The man behind the counter has dyed-blond hair gelled up on his head, making him look slightly like a rock star. He’s reading a sports magazine of some sort while smoking a cigarette. He looks like a gangster.

A gangster-rockstar who runs a small shop and probably sells drugs and oh no people have told him he looks like a gangster what if people assume he sells drugs?

He manages to snap himself out of it, and doesn’t notice the looks passed behind him.

Asahi goes to the lunches-to-go section and picks out a nice-looking bento, while his friends (? Are they friends now?) order pork buns.

“It’s what, 9 am? And you want pork buns already? Man, I’m scared of this year’s first years,” Asahi hears the man mutter while making them. He supposes the man has a point, 9 am is pretty early for pork buns. Hence why he got a bento.

Not at all because he’s intimidated by gangster man. Nope.

(In a year or so Asahi will probably appreciate the irony.)

Gangster man passes Daichi and Suga their pork buns and stares criticisingly at Asahi, his Karasuno uniform and his bento box. Asahi makes a swift retreat as he sees the guy stiffen up from fear he is no doubt causing.

Once outside the shop, the three start walking back to Asahi’s house, since Suga has decided that if the three are going to spend their day together Asahi should be dressed better.

They talk about anything and nothing on the way there, Asahi always half-aware that he probably destroyed someone’s clothes or scalded them when he ran through here half an hour ago.

He is suddenly struck by a gloved hand to the hip and narrowly avoids being shoved sideways because of it. He turns to see Suga holding his hand in a pained manner.

“I guess I misjudged where your hips were, oops!” He smiles ruefully, “But my point still stands. Stop being so negative!”

Asahi contemplates telling Suga about how  _ it’s not actually that easy _ , but instead simply nods. Suga takes it as an affirmation and continues chatting. Daichi stares at him knowingly for a few seconds before rejoining the conversation.

It turns out all three of them play volleyball. Suga fits the setter stereotype of being damningly pretty (at least to Daichi, though that idiot hasn’t noticed it yet), and Daichi seems like the type to be captain in their third year. 

“Hello future ace, how are you doing?” Daichi jokes and Asahi can feel himself turn red.

“F-future ace? Me?” While Asahi had technically been the ace of his team, his pure nervousness meant he was used more like a pinch server and so he didn’t see much of the action. He knows that once he gets into it the fear melts away, but in matches it never really gets to that point. At least his team had learned to play with him despite that.

“Yes, you. Once you’ve had your growth spurt, why not? Besides, I played against your team once in middle school, your spikes were killer.” Daichi’s smiling at him, and while he can tell his words are supposed to be encouraging, they feel accusatory. Asahi shrinks in on himself, oblivious to the ‘we done fucked up’ looks Daichi and Suga are sporting.

“I’m sorry, but I doubt it. I’m sure one of the other first years will be better than me,” and before either of the two can argue Asahi slips away by turning invisible, then bolting for his house. This is probably one of the few times he’s glad for his pseudo-control of the invisibility.

Daichi swipes a hand for his collar, but it fails to connect somehow. The back of his neck turns very cold though.

Thankfully as Asahi is invisible this time around he doesn’t interrupt anyone’s day for the second time as he sprints down the street and turns a corner. 

He reaches his door and stops being invisible, as he unlocks it and steps inside. He goes into his room and changes into something more comfortable, rehanging his school trousers but placing the shirt in the washing basket.

His mother probably knows he’s in the house, but Asahi thanks the gods she hasn’t decided to butt in on his overexcitable regret mechanism.

What happens if the two people he’d been close to calling friends decide that because he ran away he’s easy pickings and bully him? What happens if they decide he’s not worth it after all? What happens if they tell the whole volleyball team how cowardly he is and so he gets kicked out? What happens if-

“Asahi, dear, I can feel your nervousness from down here!” His mum yells up the stairs from the kitchen, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Despite the fact that no, Asahi would prefer to keep all his feelings locked up and then die, he accepts the fact that his wish will never come true and goes downstairs to where his mum will probably be preparing jasmine tea.

He appears in the kitchen door to find her doing exactly what he just said she would. She smiles down at him- his family is naturally very tall, and he hasn’t had his second growth spurt yet.

“So, what happened?” The simple invitation to do so and he’s spewing words at his mum with the hope she understands the gist. Once he’s done turning into a pile of anxious goo, she envelops the lump which was previously her son in a warm hug. 

“Don’t worry, my boy, they don’t seem like the types who’ll ridicule you for being yourself. Just make sure you apologise next time you see them and you’ll be fine.” 

Next time turns out to be in a minute or so, as there’s a knock on the door. Asahi’s mother goes to get it, presuming it’s a postman but instead is mildly surprised when it turns out to be two short boys, who ask if anyone called Azumane Asahi lives here.

Asahi can tell it’s Daichi and Suga, so signals to her not to let them in. She, of course, does exactly the opposite. 

So here he is, with two people who took the trouble to track down his house- only yakuza members would go to that much trouble, scratch the first idea. Here he is with two yakuza members who coincidentally look like first years in his living room- and his mum is making them jasmine tea.

Oh joy.

————————

Suga’s first thoughts about Asahi’s house is that it suits him, in a roundabout way. The living room, which he’s currently sitting in, is a large room, but the piles of clutter in the corners make it feel smaller. Despite that, it’s well-lit and has a well-lived in feel to it.

Those were good thoughts, he should become an architect when he leaves school.

Asahi himself must’ve been busy in the 7 or so minutes since he’d bolted. He’s got changed into a more comfortable-looking pair of jeans and a green flannel shirt. Despite that he looks like the yakuza have just entered his house and are being brought tea.

He supposes he and Daichi technically did ask around to see where Asahi lived, but they’re not yakuza. Yet.

Suga and Daichi, as self-appointed best friends, have perfected the art of simultaneous timing, and so with a quick glance in each other’s direction they bow to apologise to Asahi…

...only to be beaten to it by the boy himself. 

“I’m sorry I ran off on you guys, especially since we had the scare of almost losing Suga when he was invisible, it was inconsiderate of me.” Asahi looks like he has more to his apology running through his head, but as none of it is said aloud Suga interrupts his mental dialogue.

“If anything, we’re sorry for causing that reaction.” He comes to sit down by Asahi, then asks, “Are you really that bad at taking a compliment?”

Asahi blushes slightly, “I’m working on it, but yes.” Once again he looks like he has more to say, but seemingly he’s not confident saying it to people he hardly knows, which is fair.

So Suga doesn’t pry, and instead does the next best thing- signals Daichi over and starts a cuddle pile. He’s careful to keep his gloves fully covering his hands as he doesn’t want another go-around of being invisible.

Daichi, using best-friend communication (he hopes Asahi can take part in that as well at some point) joins without complaint, and pretty soon they are a best-friend-sandwich, with Asahi the filling slowly accepting his place there.

Needless to say, when Asahi’s mother appears with tea, she is pleasantly surprised that her son has such amazing friends.

———————-

“So what happened there?” Azumane Rui asks, hours later, once Daichi and Suga have left (and made a great first impression).

Asahi shrugs honestly from his blanket fort in the corner of the sofa. “They apologised? And then there was a cuddle pile.. I don’t really know what was going on there.” He pauses, “They’re kinda scary when they’re focused on something.”

Rui laughs, “Just be glad that because you’re friends they won’t pick on you as much.” She purposely omits the fact that’s normally not the case in friend groups, but hopefully Asahi’s tired enough from social interactions he won’t question it.

Thankfully he doesn’t, instead turning himself into a blanket onigiri. His hair has fallen out of his low ponytail so it looks like someone poured soy sauce on top of an onigiri. Not as good as wasabi on top but Rui can’t judge anyone for their theoretical onigiri options.

She stands up, announcing she’s starting on dinner, and receives a slurred okay as a response. Hopefully Asahi doesn’t fall asleep on the sofa- he’s too heavy for her to be able to pick him up and carry him any more.

If that happens she’s bringing his alarm downstairs and setting it half an hour early as vindication.

————————

First day part 2- Asahi is woken up half an hour early from his position on the sofa.

Today is definitely a Monday, so he finds a clean shirt and trousers, then slowly makes himself breakfast. 

His mum’s ‘punishment’ was actually a blessing in disguise, as he’s able to look a lot more put-together as he did yesterday, as well as being able to walk or bus to school without extreme levels of fear.

Most of the first day is taken over by the inauguration ceremony, but once that’s over the clubs are out, trying to get sign-ups to them while people go to their first lesson. 

Asahi is more preoccupied with finding his classroom, but as luck would have it on the way to class 1-C he’s approached by someone handing out flyers for the volleyball club.

He accepts one gingerly, and his soon-to-be senpai slaps him on the back well-meaningly. “See you after school then!” Asahi nods, and senpai briefly glows, then is swallowed up by the crowd.

Asahi briefly wonders why he hadn’t had that problem, then notices everyone keeping about a metre away from him while still looking distinctly uncomfortable, and sags briefly. Of course these people thought he was scary, he’d somehow forgotten about his powers with the onslaught of information.

He sits down in his seat, at the back and on the left hand-side of the class. He arrived suspiciously early due to the lack of pushing through crowds, so there are only a few people inside. 

One of them walks over to him, somehow undeterred by his ‘aura of ‘ _ Try me and I’ll crush you’ _ ’ that Daichi has said he had. She’s tall, with dirty blonde hair tied in a high ponytail. She also seems like the type to have millions of friends who hang onto her every word.

“Aihara Mao, pleased to meetcha! I’ll be sitting next to you this year, prepare yourself.” Well that destroyed that assumption.

“A-Azumane Asahi, the same.” Aihara laughs.

“So I’m guessing you came here to control that rampant fear you got? That’s neat. I’m nothing that flashy.” Asahi nods quickly, then asks about her power.

She smiles and grabs his shoulder. As he absently notes it’s the second time in ten minutes his shoulder has been touched by strangers, her hand starts heating up. 

“So it’s a heating ability. I’m sure it comes in handy when you forget about your tea,” Asahi says unwittingly, and Aihara snorts.

“A very important use of my power indeed.” They move to continue talking, but the teacher has arrived, so they have to instead have a maths lesson.

———————

Volleyball club starts directly after school, so Asahi leaves Aihara, who has a couple girls swarming around her now. They both look to be pretty athletic first-years, and have short dark hair. Asahi supposes Aihara has a preference in friends of some sort.

He reaches the gym to hear the sounds of volleyball, and his fear lifts a little, only to come back full-force in a couple of seconds. He’s heard Coach Ukai is a demon without the horns, and that the team itself isn’t much better.

What if those weren’t rumours? What if he dies via being eaten? What if he  _ doesn’t  _ die from being eaten, what if he dies from something else volleyball related?

Like being shoved into the gym by presumably Daichi. Maybe that could off him. RIP Asahi, died by being sacrificed by a friend.

When he looks around though, he sees no demon coach, just people doing a slightly half-hearted spiking drill.

One of them stops the drill once he notices the new first years, two of them laughing at the taller one of the three, with the taller one in question giving them a look which is supposed to be menacing.

Asahi later notices none of the team seem particularly concerned with the fear he’s sure he’s emitting, but lets it slide for now.

“Hey there! You’re our new first-years, right?” Asahi, and presumably his friends, nod quickly.

Senpai 1 smiles at them and levitates a volleyball over to himself. “So, introduce yourselves, then we can get into a drill of some sort!” 

Asahi hears Daichi and Suga do their intros, but is more concerned with where the famous Coach Ukai is. He has to be nudged to do his own introduction, and doesn’t flub it, mostly.

“Azumane Asahi, I went to Seikoudai middle school, wing spiker! Knife to feet you!”

Well, it was close enough, right?

Senpai 1 then introduces himself and some of the other assorted senpai. Asahi wishes he could remember any of their names but he’s kinda a mess at the minute, plus hopefully Suga or Daichi will catch him up.

They continue the spiking drill and other than senpai 1, the whole team feels very.. unenthusiastic. This briefly helps Asahi relax until he wonders what terrible punishment Coach Ukai will have for them and the fear comes back at least half-force. Maybe five-eighths-force?

“Whoa dude, chill out a bit, you’re making it hard to play!” One of the senpai gallery says as they flub a spike. It probably doesn’t help his cause though as being called out on his fear makes Asahi more afraid of being afraid because then his senpai will yell at him causing him to be afraid and that’ll make him afraid and wow the word afraid doesn’t sound right in his head anymore oops.

Alongside his mental fizzling-out, he has Daichi poking him in the back to thank for snapping himself out of his own head. Unfortunately he’s snapped out just in time to spike.

Senpai… 3 (maybe) tosses the ball up high and far from the net, and Asahi jumps. It’s an awkward angle, he jumps a bit fast and so it only hits his fingers, but the ball still goes over the net with a  _ thwack _ . Or maybe a  _ boom _ . Asahi’s never been one for sound effects.

Either way, as Suga and Daichi (and senpais 1 and 4) come over to congratulate him, he feels some of his fear melt away.

——————

Daichi is, as a whole, kinda unimpressed with Karasuno’s volleyball team. They were lazy and unfocused, like their light had gone out after they lost their ‘Little Giant’. He had internally scoffed, because why would a team place so much trust in someone if they were gone in 3 years?

But after seeing Asahi’s spike, which looked like it could get through blockers like.. a lightsaber through metal (or, more grimly and yet more like volleyball, people), Daichi can suddenly see why it would happen. After all, if you had a lightsaber, the best weapon in existence as known by everyone, why would you choose to go for something less useful, like a blaster?

And, if he was continuing the Star Wars metaphors- he’s a fan, sue him- Asahi wielded his lightsaber like a master. Hell, that spike was hit by his fingers and still had that much power. It was such a shame the guy’s personality was more like a green-behind-the-ears youngling. 

Daichi vows that by his third year, Asahi will have the self-confidence to back up his supreme form. But before that happens, they still have the rest of practice.

—————

“So, that was underwhelming,” Suga says as they walk down the hill after their first practice, “But your spikes were amazing, Asahi!” 

The Asahi in question blushes deeply, “They weren’t great, really. I couldn’t quite get into sync with..” he pauses, slightly embarrassed, “senpai 3.”

Suga laughs loudly, “Senpai 3? Did you not bother to learn their names or something?” Because really, they’d all introduced themselves when the trio had arrived. Daichi tries miserably to hide a snicker behind his hand as Asahi continues, blush like a flashlight.. if flashlights glowed red and came from people’s faces.

“I was a bit occupied with thinking about my untimely demise, thanks,” Asahi says, sounding like he doesn’t care, but fear spiking anyway. It drops, but Suga wonders briefly if that was because he’d calmed down or because he’d started going invisible.

“Fortunately for you, me and Daichi are here to make sure you get no untimely demises. But back to the original point, my middle school practices were better than that!”

Daichi makes a sound of agreement to his left, and Asahi nods gingerly.

“So.. what are we going to do about it?” The three exchange looks, none anywhere near finding an answer. The rest of their walk is spent in contemplation. 

Near to where the three have to part ways, Asahi speaks up,“Um, we could always just practice with ourselves? It’s not like three scrawny first years are going to change the senpai’s minds, after all. We may as well just improve ourselves.”

“That’s.. kinda defeatist but not a bad idea at all!” Suga says, ‘patting’ Asahi on the back with a gloved hand. Asahi, for his part, stumbles forward and is caught by Daichi before he hits the floor.

“Suga’s not wrong, plus we can always do this and work on getting the senpais to change their minds. I mean, we’ve got a setter and two wing spikers, which should be good enough to do some form of practice!” Daichi says as he hauls Asahi upwards.

Suga then sums up what he hopes the other two are thinking, “We can make this work!”

—————

Three weeks later and Asahi is, to put it very mildly, quite confused. Why did they decide the first years needed to learn about international cultures? And why Belgium of all places?

The only thing he knows about Belgium is it’s famous for chocolate. Besides, it’s not like he’ll go there any time soon. The teacher’s voice is a boring drone and it doesn’t take long for his mind to wander.

His after-practice practices have been going well so far, and with the help of Daichi spiking at him he’s getting better at receiving. 

For the fun of it, they also tried switching positions on Monday. Suga is surprisingly good at spiking, and if this whole wing spiker gig doesn’t work out, Asahi could totally become a setter, even if he doesn’t have the ‘effortlessly pretty’ thing going for him.

He distantly hears the rustling of paper and gets poked in the side by a snickering Aihara. “Oi, daydreamer! Get some paper out, we need to write about the destruction of Ypres!”

Asahi manages not to yelp, thankfully, but absolutely starts turning invisible. At least the teacher doesn’t notice that one of his students briefly disappeared, and so Asahi can continue without being caught out on it.

It doesn’t stop his mind from wandering back to volleyball though.

———————

After the... questionable lesson on Belgium, Asahi has power counselling. He’s had a couple of sessions already, but those were group sessions. This is a one-to-one, and as can be expected, he’s nervous.

At the least there’s no way he can be late as he parts the sea of students like that one guy with the tablets with his anxiety.

Unfortunately, the counsellor herself is late as she’s ’having lunch’ despite having had an hour and a half’s break to do that in. Asahi also knows for a fact that the person who was supposed to have an appointment before him was ill so there really shouldn’t have been an excuse.

So instead of getting it over and done with so he can go and see Daichi and Suga to vent, he’s stuck in front of the office looking very much like he’s done something wrong. Once again the gangster look isn’t helping him much as multiple students have stared at him while he’s been sitting outside the office, and Asahi can feel his tension levels rising.

Maybe he should cut his hair. That would make him look less ‘wild’ as they put it.

Eventually the door opens and the counsellor opens her door. There’s no leather couch, but the sofa is quite comfortable as Asahi sits down. 

“So, I understand you’re here to control your… fear?” She asks, with a tense smile. Asahi can see that while she’s trying not to let it affect her, she’s nonetheless being hit by at least part of his fear. Asahi distantly hopes she doesn’t start to make tea.

“Um, that’s right, miss.” He neglects to mention the invisibility until it’s brought up, as for the most part he knows how to keep it under control.

“So do you have any goals to set for this term?”

Oh no. Setting goals. Asahi’s really, really not good at that. The counsellor tenses and Asahi desperately tries to calm himself down.

He focuses on the series of scarves behind the counsellor, all with bright pink lips on them, probably from the same designer. He distantly wonders where she got them. 

“The high street in Tokyo.” Asahi is thrown out of his funk by his counsellor answering. “Aha, I guess I said that out loud. Sorry,” He apologies, but so does she.

“Sorry to you too. I needed a way to snap you out of it but I didn’t mean to pry.” Asahi blinks uncomprehendingly, and she laughs. “This is a school for people with powers Azumane, did you really think the counsellor wouldn’t have any herself?”

Asahi blushes, “I mean it makes sense, but it slipped my mind… Miss.”

She chuckles, “Happens to the best of us. Now, about that goal?”

“Um, to try and control the fear within a specific environment?”

“Don’t phrase it like a question. And where? In the classroom? At lunch? In a club?”

Asahi swallows, “My goal this term is to try and control the fear during volleyball practice.”

“Well done! Honestly the thing that needs to be helped first is probably your self-esteem. Once that’s done, the rest should be much easier, but I know it’s hard to do that so your current goal is good! Now go eat lunch, you must be hungry.”

Asahi is shooed out of the office to go and eat lunch. He doesn’t mention that he doesn’t feel too hungry anymore and instead goes to find Daichi and Suga.

————————

Aihara Mao may not be the smartest of people but there’s one thing she knows for certain. Well, there’s a few but only one that currently matters as she goes to where she’s discovered Sawamura and Sugawara normally sit.

She knows that Azumane Asahi, the gentle kid that sits next to her, is constantly afraid. And she wants to know what’s up with that.

She finds the two outside, under a tree, eating lunch. Or rather, Suga’s eating lunch while Daichi sits stock-still and much greener than usual. That might be grass he’s covered in.

Asahi isn’t there, and isn’t going to be for at least 15 minutes as he’s at powers counselling. Good. He didn’t need to be, or rather, it was better he wasn’t there. Asahi, the timid boy he is, probably wouldn’t respond well to the line of questioning Mao is about to embark on.

“Excuse me,” she says as she walks up to the pair. Sawamura doesn’t move anything except his eyes to her direction, but Sugawara turns himself around to face her.

“Yes, hello?” He says, before continuing, “I’m sorry Daichi can’t answer you at the minute, he’s a bit… shall we say, stuck, but what can we do for you?”

Mao breathes in, then quickly asks, “You’re Asahi’s friends, right?” Suga nods, “Why is he so scared?”


	2. The Poster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which best friends communicate, gets burned figuratively and literally, names are added to the list and a poster is drawn.
> 
> Apparently that took me nearly 8000 words.
> 
> There might be descriptions of panic attacks (i don’t know if the symptoms of what ive described are similar or not) but if you think it might trigger you then please don’t read

Suga can readily say he wasn’t expecting the question that came out of the tall girl’s mouth. He vaguely recognises her from Asahi’s description of the girl who sits next to him in class and has been unfailingly kind to him.

So he briefly turns into a goldfish, mouth flapping open and shut as he tries to get an answer which will satisfy the girl who is standing imposingly above him. 

After ten seconds or so (though it felt like longer to his brain, which apparently was also turned into a goldfish’s in the tragic accident of 10 seconds ago) he manages to get something out, that something being, “No idea.”

The girl (Ai- something? Aisuke? Aifuri?) sits down, like she can tell there’s more to it than that- which fair enough, there is- and raises a very accusing eyebrow at Suga.

He tries to resist it but ends up saying, “I’m serious! We have no idea why he’s like that, we’ve known him for a single day more than you! The only reason he seems like better friends with us is the volleyball practice we do after school!” He’s pretty certain he does some frantic hand movements to go along with it- is Daichi snickering at him?

Ai..kiko? stops looking so angry and instead looks confused. “Volleyball? What position does he play?” 

Suga, as he has every right to be, is thrown again. “Wing spiker?” In his peripheral vision he can see Daichi trying to move his jaw around, which hopefully means he can salvage the mess Suga’s making.

“Is he any good? Could he give me tips?”

“You’d have to ask him..” Daichi has definitely got control of at least his jaw because he starts laughing.

“Suga, you’re amazing, has anyone ever told you that?” Not in those words, no, but Suga suspects they haven’t quite said them in that tone either. There’s something in it he can’t quite place.

“Thank you Daichi, I am indeed amazing. But back to the more serious matter at hand, why do you want to know?”

Ai… hara? Aihara! He got it right! Aihara shifts slightly uncomfortably. “He’s just so.. on edge the whole time. I wanna find a way for him to relax more, cause I bet if that happens then controlling it will be so much easier.” Suga can’t deny the logic there.

(Neither can a certain list, which adds Aihara Mao onto itself.)

She continues, “I mean, for his power to come out like it did, something must’ve happened..” Which is a scary thought, now isn’t it. 

Suga’s power was borne of the intense desire to be  _ exactly  _ like his idol growing up, Hiroki Ino. That meant that Asahi’s intense desire would’ve been a lot more sinister for his power to make him disappear and project an aura of ‘don’t come near me’. Suga really doesn’t want to think about that too hard.

“Well.. unfortunately neither of us can help with figuring out the why, but we can help with the relaxation. But first, Asahi’ll be coming back from counselling in a couple of minutes, wanna stay so you can spring volleyball questions at him?”

Aihara smiles, somewhere between kindhearted and malicious, and Daichi shivers. Suga doesn’t know why, it’s perfectly warm out for the time of year.

(He doesn’t realise his smile looks exactly the same as Aihara’s.)

————

Asahi comes outside, expecting to sit down in peace with his two best friends before possibly grabbing something to eat when he felt less like the world was tilted off an axis or another.

Instead, he sees Aihara sitting with the two and seemingly quizzing the two on something. Daichi isn’t moving much, meaning he’s probably stuck to the ground in some capacity. Suga however is gesticulating wildly, and has hit Daichi’s forehead at least twice in the 30 seconds Asahi’s been observing.

Daichi doesn’t mind, which is a telling sign of something. Asahi makes a mental note to bring it up later with him, when Suga’s not around.

But before that happens he does actually have to deal with his friends. He rounds the corner, intending to make it look like he hasn’t been hovering behind it…

.. and gets pounced on.

“Asahi! Why didn’t you tell me you played volleyball? You’re a wing spiker, can you give me tips? Are you any good?” Aihara seems to have teleported to his location, and it takes a good few seconds for Asahi to actually register any of her words.

Once he’s processed them, however, Asahi rushes to answer all of the questions as fast as possible, “Uh, it never got brought up, plus, ah, you looked too cool to care? And, um, I can try? But you might want to ask Daichi instead, he’s a better all-rounder than me… Apparently I’m good? I mean I can spike but that's it really.. anything else?”

Please say no, please say no, he thinks desperately. He’s starting to get overwhelmed, and he thinks that Suga and Daichi can probably feel it too based on the way they’ve tensed up. He starts shooting glances their way, hoping they’ll understand.

Although Aihara should by all means be affected by his rampant fear, she seems a bit preoccupied drilling him for answers. Asahi gets the creeping fear that he’s going to either faint or turn invisible, or both.

Which would be horrible because Daichi and Suga wouldn’t find his body and maybe someone would step in him and either way he’d be late to class and possibly yelled at and he really doesn’t want to let anyone down or be stepped in now he thinks about that- and would he squelch when stepped in? He can distantly remember it happening before but never if there was a squelch.

Asahi doesn’t realise the face of ‘I done fucked up’ on Aihara as she steps back, just that she does and she stops asking questions and now he can  _ breathe _ .

“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to do that!” Asahi bows, seeing more than feeling himself turn invisible, which only causes his background wondering about squelching to become forefront. He’s also started stuttering, which is not a good sign.

It would seem his universal way of making friends is them overwhelming him and him becoming invisible to cope. 

But he doesn’t quite get there- as he straightens up, Aihara bows. “It was my fault for causing it, I’m sorry! Next time I’ll restrain myself with the questions!”

Asahi stops. Blinks. Normally when he does that people don’t apologise back, just tell him it’s fine or to shut up. He feels strangely relieved.

Unfortunately now the problem has shifted to what he says to Aihara.

“It’s okay, it’s not like you stepped on me or anything!” He says, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck embarrassedly. Seconds later, and after noticing the sceptical glances his friends are giving him, he realises what he said was actually pretty stupid with no context.

“Ahh, please forget I said that!” Daichi, who has finally regained almost total movement, shuffles towards him and asks,

“Where did your mind go that being stepped on was something that would happen?”

Asahi rushes to explain, but he thinks the only coherent words out his mouth are ‘invisible’ and ‘squelch’. 

His friends (now including Aihara) seem to sympathise with him though, so he supposes all’s well that ends well.

After the laughter has subsided, Suga then asks, “Would it be alright if Aihara joins some of our volleyball sessions? That way we can have two-on-twos. Plus it means you get more of an opportunity to play setter!”

Asahi thinks it over, then agrees. He does enjoy being an on-and-off setter, after all.

————

It’s about 3 days until the qualifiers for the Inter-high… and Asahi is sitting in the middle of a maths lesson, bored out of his mind. 

The lesson is supposed to be on powers and surds, which make absolutely no sense to him, so he zones out.

Not on purpose, of course, but which is more exciting- volleyball or stupid roots of numbers that don’t make any sense anyway?

He, Daichi and Suga have been improving, but there’s only so much they can do with 3 people, 4 with the addition of Aihara on Wednesdays and Fridays, and very occasionally 5 with Daichi’s old school friend Michimiya. Asahi’s sure his senpai have noticed the difference but none of them have bothered to say anything about it, so they obviously don’t care too much.

The teacher writes up an exercise to do on the board and Asahi opens his book to the page only to understand absolutely nothing. What the hell does it mean, ‘ _ what’s the square root of 3 times 4 root 3’ _ ?

Asahi nearly groans in defeat out loud, but stops himself and instead creates some version of an answer which sounds right to him; 5 root 3.

He goes through the rest employing a similar strategy where he can. Then the teacher goes through and apparently the answer is 12? Where did 12 come from?

He gives up. As long as he understands the rest of the curriculum they can’t take him out of volleyball, right?

Aihara snickers beside him, and he shoots her a look that hopefully conveys ‘like you know any better’ and also ‘do you know any better’, because despite the fact he can probably get by without knowing surds it would probably be better for his sanity if he didn’t have to.

Her self-satisfied smirk tells him that she does know better, but also that she’s not going to tell him until he can do something for her. Like practising receives or something. Although.. Inter-High is coming up so maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to get in some more practise. 

After half an hour of torture at the hands of square roots, Asahi can’t wait to get out of the classroom and away from the torturous hands of his teacher. He’s sneakily moving towards the door when the class is finally let go, and zooms to the lunch hall as fast as he can. 

Of course the one time he’s excited for lunch everyone else is too, so there’s a lot of jostling down the corridors. He overhears a senpai talking about some special bread that is being sold today and is said to give whoever eats it luck. Asahi steels himself and decides that he is going to get that bread, whatever it takes.

‘Whatever it takes’ turns out to mean fighting his way through a massive crowd of starving students. Thankfully he has an advantage- the more scared he gets of being crushed by the masses, the stiffer said masses get and the quicker he can get to the front of the queue.

After 5 minutes of being scared for his life on purpose Asahi gets to the front of the queue, pays and retreats again. He goes to Daichi and Suga’s normal place, where they’re probably waiting. The two get bentos every day, which is absolutely unfair.

Maybe just to spite them he won’t give them any of his special bread, he thinks as he walks across the courtyard to Daichi’s favoured tree. 

Because apparently getting stuck to the floor under that tree is nicer than any other tree? Asahi distantly wonders if Daichi had gone and got stuck under every tree to test it out.

As he sits down though he has to admit Daichi’s favourite tree is a good one. Large amounts of leaves save them from the vicious heat of midday sun and so the grass underneath is comfortably cool.

“Oh? What’s that you got there?” Suga asks as Asahi sits down.

“According to some senpai I overheard, bread that gives you good luck!” Asahi says, chuckling slightly at how stupid it seems in retrospect. “I figured we may as well try it for luck in the Inter-High, and if not at least it’ll still taste good.”

“Asahi that’s so-“ but Suga is interrupted.

“Sappy. That’s amazingly sappy. I can’t believe you’d do something that bad. No wait, actually I can, you seem the type.” Daichi snorts and Asahi can just tell this is being stored to be brought up at a later date.

“Well, if you’re going to be like that, then you won’t get any special bread Daichi,” Asahi says, splitting his bread to give some to Suga.

“But what if because you don’t give me any bread the whole team fails? Would you be able to withstand the guilt from that, Asahi?” Daichi says. It’s a clear guilt-trip and Asahi knows it. But he won’t give in.

He won’t. 

Definitely not.

Nope.

In his defense it was a good point.

“Fine, but I’m getting a third of your bento,” he says, because he’s only bought this bread and he can’t afford to be hungry when they have practise later today.

“Deal,” Daichi says, and they exchange foodstuffs.

Asahi is now more jealous than he was before of Daichi’s bento; it tastes  _ divine. _

“Who made this?” 

“My mum, why?” Daichi’s face looks defensive.

“Cause it’s fucking delicious!” Asahi says, oblivious to the stares from Daichi and Suga. He is in heaven right now and continues to dig in with gusto.

[Suga and Daichi do some best friend communication over Asahi’s head, about two things. One, that Asahi just swore with pleasure and two, there isn’t a hint of fear in the air. Maybe there’s a correlation in there somewhere…]

“Well, um, I’ll be sure to tell her you like it,” Daichi mutters, “Maybe with a little paraphrasing though..”

After Asahi’s made his way through the third of a bento he was given in record time, it is time to eat the special bread.

Suga insists on making a ritual out of it, partially for fun and partially because for whatever reason he believes that it will bring them more luck if they do.

So the three sit in a circle and give thanks for their meal, then make a wish on the special bread.

Suga has also decreed they are not allowed to talk about what their wishes are, because apparently that means they won’t come true.

So, while the other two may have made more ambitious wishes, Asahi goes for something simpler-

‘ _ I wish to spend as much time playing volleyball with my friends as possible! _ ’

————

The Inter-High comes. The Inter-High goes. Not much changes because Karasuno didn’t even survive the first day.

Why? Because they have no coach, no experience and no senpais that care.

Well, Daichi thinks, that’s not strictly true. Their captain, senpai 1 cares, but it’s care with a tinge of sadness, like he knows that despite all the effort he puts in, nobody else does.

It must really suck to be captain if that’s the case. He hopes he doesn’t have to be captain.

But then again, imagining Suga or, heaven forbid,  _ Asahi  _ as captain sends shivers down his spine. Suga, underneath his sweet personality, is a devil who’d make everyone do diving drills every practise, and Asahi would probably combust under the pressure.

But either way, most of their third years have left, including senpai 1, their supervising teacher (who actually used to play volleyball) and perhaps more importantly, their manager. 

Granted the supervisor was going on paternity leave so Daichi can’t blame him.

Those three were the ones who had sorted out what drills they were doing, and had tried to get in practice matches for them. 

With varying levels of success, but they were trying.

So at lunchtime two days later, he proposes that they try and find a new manager for their club. After putting forward his reasoning Suga and Asahi agree to help him. There are just a few minor flaws.

One, they have no artistic talent between them to make flyers, two they don’t know what to put in said flyers and three most people are already in clubs and so don’t have the time for another.

“I know! I’ll ask our supervisor to-“ Suga cuts himself off, “Oh, wait. We don’t have one any more..”

They sit, chewing their lunches in silence for some time, trying to think of a solution.

“Couldn’t we stick up one of those things with a phone number?” Suga says. Daichi stares blankly at him, but Asahi seems to have caught the gist.

“The ones with the little pull-off slips?”

“Yeah those ones, thanks!” Suga beams at Asahi, who blushes and pulls in on himself. It's been months and the guy still can’t take a compliment, even when said compliment is in fact a ‘thank you’. Daichi resists the urge to sigh.

“So you want to make a little pull-out sheet for people who want to be our manager to sign up on. Whose phone number were you planning on putting on there?” Daichi asks, trying to understand.

Asahi’s fear spikes slightly, and Suga’s eyes widen in fear. “What?”

“I’m not sure if you’d noticed but you’re quite scary sometimes,” Suga says, suspiciously delicately. Behind him, Asahi nods his agreement.

Daichi personally doesn’t see it, but doesn’t argue. “Since I am the most responsible of all three of us, I’ll put my number down. What say you come around to my house tonight to work on it?” 

“Sorry Daichi, I can’t. I’m on babysitting duty for my neighbour,” Suga says, with the tone of voice that implies he’d rather be doing anything else.

“That’s fine. Asahi?” Said Asahi jolts to attention.

“I’m free, but let me text my mum and ask if I can.” There’s the clicking of buttons that comes with a bad nokia phone and the text is sent. While waiting for the reply, Asahi digs into his school-bought katsu curry.

It smells pretty good actually. Daichi’s jealous.

Asahi doesn’t notice the staring Daichi’s doing in the direction of his curry until he’s almost finished it. Daichi hadn’t realised the decline in background tension until it reared its head again.

“Oh you wanted some? I’m sorry, I didn’t realise! Uhm, I don’t really have any left any more, but next time I have some you can definitely have it!” Daichi resists the urge to sigh as he reassures the boy that it’s fine, it wasn’t his lunch anyway and Asahi needs to eat.

Suga watches on with a faint air of amusement. Of course the one who’s better at calming their perpetually nervous friend decides to take a day off when he’s actually needed.

And he won’t be there to mediate tonight. This could go horribly wrong. 

Almost as if Daichi thinking about it made it happen- he’s sure there’s an idiom for this in english- Asahi’s nokia buzzes with a text. It’s almost funny how small it looks in his hands as he checks what it says.

“Mum says it’s fine, and wants to know if I’m staying for dinner?” Asahi asks. It’s like he’s never been over to someone else’s after school, which is quite sad when Daichi thinks about it. He tries not to think about it.

“I think so, unless you really don’t want to. I’ll be making it tonight anyway so if you want anything in particular?” It’s Daichi’s turn on the making food rota that’s set up in his house. Hopefully Asahi asks for something easy to make, he’s not sure if he could do it otherwise.

“I, uh, wouldn’t want to intrude on what you’ve got planned. I’ll say that I’m staying though,” Asahi’s face briefly lights up before he has to focus his energy on not making typos.

Daichi looks over at Suga, and says in best-friend-communication, _ we need to get you to come round next time. _

Suga nods and replies, and _ figure out the reason for his nervousness. _

Daichi hasn’t really thought about that. Sure, he was there when Aihara asked about it, but he was kinda zoned out at the time. Since then it hasn’t registered in his mind, but he supposes it helps him on his plan to make Asahi act like the Jedi master he is.

He communicates this to Suga, who briefly snorts.  _ You’re a star wars nerd? _

_ And what of it? _

“I guess we just never expected it, is all,” Asahi interjects, which stuns Daichi, and presumably Suga, “What? You thought I couldn’t understand best-friend-communication? You use it all the time at practice. Plus I’m a best friend too.”

Daichi… hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t thought he could have more than one best friend, but here he is being proven wrong.

_ See? _ , Asahi communicates,  _ You’re both my best friends too so I can hack the mainframe. _

_ Where did you hear that? _ Suga asks, probably because he’s heard it in a movie or something. Seriously, and the guy dares mock him for star wars.

Asahi chuckles self-consciously,  _ Mission: Impossible? _

_ No way! Did you enjoy it? Personally I thought the way they pulled off the main heist was very impressive! _

And so the rest of lunch is spent with Suga and Asahi debating the merits of Mission: Impossible through best-friend-communication.

————

Asahi looks more alert than usual, Aihara thinks as the two sit though the last lesson of the day. His eyes are alight with what seems to be excitement, despite the fact that their teacher is teaching about fish farming, possibly one of the most boring lessons she’s ever had to sit through.

She wonders what’s happened to make him that way.

Maybe.. an aunt died and left him loads of money? No- he’d be sad about that one even with the money. Maybe it was an aunt he really despised?

Or perhaps he knows he’s getting his favourite meal after school today? Or there’s no practice? Or he’s going to Tokyo for the weekend? 

“Aihara? Can you answer the question?” Her teacher blows through her daydreaming like a hairdryer through steam.

“Uhm, sure, sir. Could you please repeat it?”

“I said, what are the advantages of fish farming within a lake or river?”

Aihara has absolutely no idea. Thankfully it seems the burst of energy Asahi’s had has applied to his note-taking as well, because he moves his arm to let her see.

“Uhm, there’s no need to clean out the waste, and it allows for less variation in fish size?”

The teacher scoffs, but allows her to sit down again and continues on with the lesson.

Asahi looks over worriedly at her. He attempts to use best-friend-communication but it doesn’t fully succeed,  _ \- okay? - spaced out - there. _

She in turn communicates back,  _ I’m fine, but you seem pretty chipper. What’s up? _

Asahi’s eyes widen and he blushes, which Aihara takes to mean that her efforts were about as successful as his were.

_ Thanks, - that’s a - random. This - working. Talk - ? _

Aihara decides to corner him later, and she tells him so to the best of her ability, I’m getting the truth out of you, Asahi, just you wait!

_ (I’m the truth you, Asahi, you wait!) _

_ Um, - ? _ , Asahi looks away and continues with his work, faint blush on his cheeks. If she’s not mistaken there’s also a slight bit more tension in the air now. What did she say?

No matter, she’ll find out in- she glances at the clock- 6 minutes. Honestly, there’s only so much time she can be bothered to learn about how fish is mass-produced. She slips into daydreaming. Huh, it seems that by spending time around Asahi, she’s picking up his habits. 

Michimiya said she’d be at their next first-year practice so maybe she can convince her to bring another of the first-year teammates so they could have a proper three-on-three. Maybe the short setter, so Asahi, Daichi and her don’t have to do it. While it’s enjoyable, it’s not really a skill she needs to hone, unlike her spikes and receives. Daichi is pretty good with receiving, so maybe she can ask him to teach her his ways?

The bell rings, startling her out of her deliberation. Asahi stares at her out of the corner of his eye, like he’s trying to not be seen doing it.

He clears the silence in the only way it seems he knows how- awkwardly. “So, um, what were you trying to say there?”

“Uh.. ‘I’m fine, but you seem pretty chipper. What’s up?’ What did you hear?” She asks, curious.

Asahi squirms briefly, discomfort turning to fear turning into discomfort for everyone else, before muttering, “Fine, but you pretty. Up?”

Ah, she’s found the problem. Asahi, for all he’s improved in the months she’s known him, is still pretty useless at taking a compliment when he’s not expecting one. And this one was pretty unexpected, especially to her.

“Well, um, as you can probably tell, I didn’t mean to say that,” Aihara sees Asahi’s face fall slightly, and rushes to reassure him, “Not that you aren’t pretty! More I meant something else by what I was trying to say, which didn’t quite get through!” Her hands are heating up, and presumably so is her face.

Ugh, she sounds like the main character in a shoujo. At least Asahi seems reassured? 

And so, through an awkward conversation with her himbo best friend, Aihara discovers she may be a lesbian.

“So…” Asahi starts, trying to gain confidence as he goes, which in his case is a futile- but admirable- endeavour, “I was happy because Daichi invited me around to his house to work on a poster to get our club a new manager.”

He says it with barely a stutter, and Aihara nearly cheers for him. She restricts herself to a pat on the shoulder, and congratulations. Asahi smiles awkwardly, but is saved from thanking her by the appearance of Daichi, who promptly grabs him by the same shoulder as Aihara had.

Asahi winces harshly at the contact, but Aihara thinks nothing of it. “Enjoy your date!”

The two walk off, and Aihara packs up, wondering what the finished poster will look like.

————

“Daichi, please get your hand off my shoulder,” Asahi hisses, but Daichi doesn’t see a reason to do so. He may be the guy’s friend but it’s funny to see him suffer.

“Daichi, I think she scalded me, please it stings!” Admittedly that’s not an excuse he’d expected to hear, and now Asahi mentions it his shoulder is unnaturally warm..

He moves his hand and Asahi lets out a sigh of relief. Daichi’s brain then catches up to the word ‘scalded’ and he stops dead.

“Asahi, you did say scalded, right?” The boy nods hesitantly, “That’s decidedly not good, I swear I heard something about if scalds and burns aren’t treated quickly, the affected area becomes inflamed and can be infected.”

Asahi’s face goes pale and Daichi feels himself stiffen. He hopes nobody in the vicinity was trying to pour tea or do the ironing. Then Asahi starts pacing in fear.

“It’ll be in  _ flames?  _ That’s terrible! What if my shoulder goes on fire and the fire hits a curtain or something and then the house is on fire and it’s my fault because it was my shoulder?”

Daichi tries to calm his friend down, but he needs to be snapped out of it fast and so Daichi does the first thing he thinks of which isn’t slap him, because that never goes well in films. Instead he hugs Asahi, which also seems to have the shock factor (not great), and says calmly, “I’m sure the guy down at Sakanoshita will know some first aid, so let’s go before your shoulder gets infected, okay?”

Asahi nods, and his fear lowers slightly. Daichi then adds, “Besides, I said inflamed, not in flames. You weren’t going to combust,” then snickers a little. 

The rest of the fear decreases to a daily average level as Asahi hits Daichi lightly over the head.

The pair walk down to Sakanoshita faster than they normally would, mostly because of Asahi’s shoulder, which makes Asahi wince when he moves it too far.

The shop owner stares as they enter, his face turning from mildly irritated to concerned as he presumably sees the look of discomfort on Asahi’s face.

Asahi, for his part, looks slightly spooked at the intense look being sent his way, and if he weren’t possibly injured Daichi would laugh at him. Oddly though the latent fear levels don’t rise, in fact it drops suddenly. Hmm...

Shop owner man walks up to the two- Daichi needs a better nickname- brow furrowed. “What’s up with your boyfriend?” 

Daichi’s brain momentarily stops. “Boyfriend?” Then it restarts, “Oh, um, his shoulder probably got scalded. I don’t actually know if it happened or not though cause I wasn’t there, but uh, help please?”

Blondie- no wait, that’s terrible- walks over to Asahi, who is subconsciously leaning away from the man approaching him. “Jesus, calm down a little. Oh and take your shirt off, I need to examine the area.” It’s said with a tone of nonchalance, as if the guy really gives no shits about a 15-year-old stripping in the middle of his store.

Asahi, predictably, flushes bright red, but does as punk-dude (Daichi’s sticking with it for now) asks him to. What is more surprising to Daichi at least is that Asahi  _ hasn’t  _ started going invisible. Or maybe it’s not so surprising- punk-dude is levelling Asahi with a stare that could pierce metal. Or a soul. Or Darth Maul.

No, stay away from the Star Wars metaphors Daichi!

Punk-dude inspects his friend’s- or, apparently, boyfriend’s- shoulder. He frowns and rushes over to the pharmacy aisle of his corner store, coming back with a small bottle of water and a roll of cling film. During this time, the fear level in the store has risen back to normal, and Daichi wonders what it was that made it stop to start with.

He stares at the reddened skin for a second and the fear leaves again, before pouring the water on Asahi’s shoulder. Asahi, the wimp he is, yelps, but punk-dude can apparently control minds, because he stays more or less in place after that. Once punk-dude is finished with the water, he puts the cling film over the area.

“You should count yourself lucky it was superficial. Don’t aggravate it too much and it should be gone in 4 days to a week.” Punk-dude looks over to Daichi as soon as Asahi nods in fear, “And you! Take better care of your boyfriend, you got it?”

Daichi’s brain once again breaks and kickstarts, but he obviously gets punk-dude’s approval, so the two go back outside again. Asahi puts his school shirt back on, but opts to carry his gakuran and the jumper he insists on wearing for some reason.

They walk in silence for a while, until Daichi feels the need to start some small talk. “Yeesh, that was scary. It’s good you’re alright though, even though you can’t play volleyball for a bit.”

Asahi chuckles as he agrees, “I’m just glad nobody walked in and accused us of being illegal. I might actually die if somebody did that.”

“Yeah but you can just turn invisible and avoid the cops forever.” Daichi thinks some more before an idea pops in his head, “You’d be like, a master thief! The new Kaito Kid!”

“I’m flattered, but I thought my original fear was of being caught, not ‘oh yes I’ll just pop to the shops to do some crime, toodeloo’. Sounds like more of a Suga thing to me.” Asahi’s impression is terrible, and Daichi has no idea who or what it’s supposed to be, but the phrasing is hilarious so he starts snorting with laughter.

That sets off Asahi, and so the two laugh very loudly down the street towards Daichi’s house. When Daichi can finally calm down from his fit of laughter, he realises they’d walked too far, so the two double back, setting Asahi off into more giggling. Who knew.

On the second attempt, they reach Daichi’s front door. Daichi opens it up, and steps inside, Asahi following with a ‘pardon the intrusion’. “Well here we are. Be warned, my brother’s at home so stay where he can’t find you.”

“You have a brother?” 

“Yakeru, he’s taking a gap year before going into college.”

“Um, neat.” Asahi really does have a way with words.

Daichi personally doesn’t think his house is much to look at, but it seems Asahi is stunned by the paintings on the walls. Most of them were painted by his father, and when he tells Asahi this, the boy only stares harder, with wonder in his eyes.

“Your mum’s an amazing cook, and your dad’s so talented too? Better follow in those footsteps!” Asahi teases gently.

“Thanks a bunch, I’ll keep it in mind. But first, drinks? Then we can get started on the poster!” Daichi walks into the kitchen and looks at the contents of his fridge. It’s quite full, but he can’t currently be bothered to cook any of it. He’ll do that later.

“Uhm, sure, what have you got?” Asahi is surprisingly sneaky for someone his height, and Daichi jumps as he is taken out of his thoughts about meals to make.

“We got… coke, peach juice, strawberry Ramune, milk and water.”

Asahi takes the peach juice and Daichi pours himself some as well. Then they go upstairs to start making their  plans for world domination flyers for new managers.

————

Two hours later and almost nothing has been achieved. The two had discovered that they couldn’t do a rip-off-able thing like they had planned, so they’d turned to the main design. It turns out that Daichi is in fact not very good at drawing, and backseat drawing from Asahi just pisses him off further.

Asahi is ready to give up and leave, but Daichi’s mum is coming soon and he wants to congratulate her on the deliciousness of her bento, so he stays and tries to assist Daichi.

‘Tries’ being the operative word because he has no idea what he’s doing and despite the fact it was his left shoulder that was scalded and Asahi is right-handed, Daichi’s taking no chances. 

“Should we maybe work on the actual design now?” He enquires softly, not risking his neck too far. 

Daichi sighs loudly, “Or, I could start on food. I think if I stare at this paper any more I’ll lose the will to live.” Asahi tries not to laugh at his friend’s expense and most likely fails miserably.

“Oi!” Daichi turns to him with a deadly stare, and Asahi can feel his soul turning to dust under it.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please make dinner!” Daichi does, but not without a huff thrown in his direction. When he’s gone downstairs, Asahi embarks on his plan to help the poster  _ and _ prove his worth.

He sneakily sneaks over to where the poster sits on Daichi’s desk, and grabs a pencil from the pot that Daichi has there. He then moves the chair out, careful not to move his left shoulder too much because boy does it sting.

Taking the pencil, he begins to sketch out a view of a volleyball court from behind at the top. He doesn’t fully draw anyone, instead fading the designs out so he can write “Karasuno Boys Volleyball Club needs a manager! No experience in volleyball required!” as well as the practice times.

Thankfully for him the main colour of the uniforms is black so if Daichi has any brush pens around it won’t take Asahi long to colour in large amounts of the poster.

Of course, that requires finding said hypothetical brush pens so he finds some drawers and begins rooting through them with one arm, looking for them. Daichi, he discovers, has a surprising amount of Star Wars merch (and written-out fan theories), but so far no brush pens. 

A different set of drawers later and he finds a set of 12 brush pens shoved at the back of it. And even better, it had included a peachy colour instead of a white brush pen, which frankly is a waste of the ink used to make it.

He takes them over to the desk and colours the court and its players in. He also adds in a few stylistic crow feathers, then moves to rewriting the kanji so it looks stylish but also aesthetic. 

As he gets up to admire his masterpiece (if he does say so himself), Asahi’s traitorous foot catches on the chair leg and sends him tumbling to the floor with a crash. 

Footsteps walk up to Daichi’s door, and Asahi is greeted with the sight of Jesus. Or a guy who looks like what Jesus probably did way back when. 

His dark hair flows down his shoulders, past the confused look on his face. “Daichi!” He yells, “Why is there a hobo in your room?”

Ah. This must be the brother.

Asahi is mildly insulted by the hobo comment, especially since Yak.. something doesn’t look much different.

Daichi shouts up the stairs, “That’s Asahi, he’s a friend! Don’t scare him too badly!” Asahi bristles at that comment as well, but it seems the brothers do have some things in common. Like insulting him.

Yak-san snorts, “Scare? This guy? What are you doing on the floor anyway dude?” 

“I- uh, I tripped,” Asahi stutters. While his brother seems more laid-back than Daichi, his scrutinising glare is much the same.

“Well get up then! No use lying on the floor like a lazy bum!” Yak-san, Asahi decides, is weird. He does get himself off the floor though, only to nearly be sent straight back by a slap to the back.

“Err, thank you, but I’d better get going,” Asahi says before promptly skedaddling downstairs. 

When he sees Daichi he plops himself into a chair before stating, “Your brother is a weirdo.”

Daichi stares (it's the same stare!!) at him for a few seconds before bursting into laughter.

“You’re the first person to put it so bluntly, but yeah he is. Thankfully he shouldn’t bother us much until food’s ready and served.”

Daichi would soon be proven wrong, as Yak-san descends the stairs holding a familiar piece of paper.

“I never knew you were such an artist, Dai! Where did you get the talent?” And he holds up the poster which Daichi was only supposed to have seen once Asahi was far away and Daichi couldn’t yell at him for ‘aggravating his shoulder’.

Daichi has frozen up, whether from shock or Asahi’s rising fear, Asahi doesn’t know. He then looks at Yak-san and realises it’s probably the fear.

“Asahi! You weren’t supposed to move your shoulder! What happens if you make it worse?” Ah, there it is.

“I’m sorry, I just felt the need to do something useful, instead of just sitting there!” Daichi sighs, like he knew it was coming. Yak-san stares at him like he’s suddenly grown a head.

“Okay, I now understand what you were talking about. What’s this about not moving a shoulder?”

“It, uh, got scalded by accident,” Asahi says before yelping as Yak-san pokes it.

“Yakeru! That’s rude! I’m sorry about this idiot,” Daichi apologises for his brother, which is endearing, Asahi guesses. 

His acceptance of the apology is interrupted by the door opening and a yell of “Kids! I’m home!”

This must be Daichi’s mum then. He can ask about her bento, eat Daichi’s food and then leave. Easy peasy, squeeze a lemon.

“Hi mum!” The two members of the Sawamura family respond just as loudly, as Daichi’s mum walks through the doorway. She is dressed in a purple flowing skirt and white blouse. Stylish but still quite comfortable.

“Oh, and who’s this?” She peers at Asahi. Her face is rounded, unlike Daichi’s square jawline, but the eyes look eerily similar.

“Um, Azumane Asahi. Nice to meet you!” He bows slightly in her direction and she laughs, a light and airy noise. 

“Daichi, you didn’t tell me your friend was so nice and polite! Please, Azumane- call me Kuki! When is dinner ready?” Kuki switches between topics effortlessly, and Asahi distantly wonders what Daichi’s dad is like if this is his mum.

“5 or so minutes, mum. Please don’t interrogate Asahi too much, you’ll scare him.”

Kuki doesn’t interrogate him, but she does focus on him, knocking Asahi slightly off-kilter. He doesn’t like being judged. At all.

“Um, was there something you wanted..?” Asahi inquires. Meeting Daichi’s family has really helped him gain an insight into where the boy gets his habits.

She keeps her gaze on him for a few more seconds, before smiling widely, “Nope! Just wanted to see if I could guess your power!”

“And do you think you have, Sawa- I mean, Kuki-san?” Asahi wonders if his fear has just been rising since she started and that’s what she latched onto.

“Hmm… something to do with… gravity!” Asahi is hit for a loop. Gravity? How did she get that?

Then she smirks, a move oddly reminiscent of Suga, and Asahi briefly wonders if his friends have swapped parents just to spite him. “Your power has to do with your emotions, specifically discomfort and fear, right?”

“Um, yes… miss?” It’s surprisingly hard to tell what to call someone you’ve just met a large amount of the time, and this is no exception. 

Thankfully before she can scrutinise him any more, Daichi comes in with beef katsudon and sets it down on the table. Kuki-san, Yak-san and Daichi sit down and start eating. It looks delicious, but Asahi hovers for a second before Daichi glares at him, forcing him to sit down.

And then Asahi realises those questions from earlier? They were just a warm-up to the main event. He barely gets to start eating before Kuki-san starts springing questions at him.

“So, I take it you play volleyball? What position do you play?”

“Um, wing spiker-“ and now he’s answered one, he’s hit by 3 more. Aihara did this as well, is it a shared trait between women?

“Oh, so the same position as Daichi! Are you good at it? Would you say you’re any good at receiving? Is Daichi good at receiving? Do you have a libero on your team? Are there any good setters?” And on and on, and Asahi can feel his fear rising and he’s stuck in his seat and can’t move- and oh no, neither can anyone else- and can his stupid secondary power come into effect please?

Sadly he doesn’t fade out of view, and he can’t answer the questions, but now Daichi’s there and forcing him to take a bite of the katsudon- it’s actually really good, who knew Daichi could cook?

It’s only after the second or third bite that he realises that a) he’s calmed down and b) Kuki-san is staring at him. So is Yak-san. So is Daichi, but his is less ‘what the hell just happened’ and more ‘hmm interesting’. What’s interesting? But back to Kuki-san.

“Ohmigod I’m sorry! I totally hit you with too many questions, even after Daichi told me not to interrogate you! How can I ever repay you?” Asahi is confused, but takes the opportunity.

“Um, could I have a bento? I tried some of Daichi’s the other week and it was divine! Um, if you have the ingredients for that,” Asahi finishes, not wanting to be too obtrusive.

“Sweet, if it’ll make you forgive me, I will make you bentos every week.” She’s already forgiven in Asahi’s mind, but he won’t say no to Daichi’s mum’s bento. 

Yak-san on Daichi’s left laughs into his hand, before saying, “Welcome to the family, hobo-kun,” which sets Daichi off, because he’s probably got the mental image of Asahi begging for money or something.

“Boys, stop teasing your new brother!” Kuki-san says authoritatively, which sets Yak-san off as well. Asahi can’t help but smile. Maybe the rest of the evening won’t be too bad.

————

(Two new names have appeared on the list, both bearing the same surname as one higher on it. 

“It seems Azumane has met a set of parents- or siblings,” one teacher remarks.

“Good for him,” replies another from across the staff room.)

————

Well, Daichi thinks after Asahi’s left for the night, that was eventful. At least his mum seems to like Asahi, and if Yakeru has given him a nickname it’s the same for him.

He’s also discovered two things about Asahi.

One- he’s surprisingly good at drawing people.

Two- food calms him down. He’d suspected this one already, which is why he’d tried what he had, but this proves it. 

He’ll have to tell Suga about this later. For now, he copies at least 10 versions of the very nice posters Asahi had drawn (with an injured shoulder, the dumbass) and prepares to circulate them on Monday. He’ll have to ask around to see if any classes have people who haven’t joined a club in them.

It’ll be a test of leadership, something he’s been lacking an excess of since he’s no longer team captain. Daichi finds he’s looking forward to Monday more than he is the weekend, which is a very strange occurrence, but so be it.

—

Monday arrives and Daichi spends his break asking people if they know of anyone currently not in a club. His search yields three results- Kamiki Ryuji, Iketani Yui and Shimizu Kiyoko. He then asks them during the start of the lunch break whether they would be interested in becoming the club manager.

Kamiki is an instant no, Iketani listens until he mentions the practice times, but Shimizu? Shimizu actually seems interested in the position.

Daichi looks into her eyes, and sees a strange sort of longing, as well as fierce determination.

“So you’ll do it? You’ll turn up tonight?” Daichi feels like he’s about to start bouncing around like an excitable goat… He needs to get better with his similes… 

Shimizu nods shyly and Daichi bows stiffly, “Thank you!” He hands her a sheet of paper with Asahi’s design on it, and their hands touch briefly.

Daichi blushes- it’s the first time he’s accidentally touched hands with a girl who wasn’t his mum- and then feels a familiar stiffness. Has he stuck himself to the floor again?

Judging by the look on Shimizu’s face, he hasn’t. It’s a muted form of when Asahi realises he’s panicking so proceeds to panic even more. Huh, she must have one that freezes other people. 

Daichi tries to say “It’s fine, I’m used to it” through his teeth, but it doesn’t seem to work very well. Once he’s free- 2 minutes seemed to take both ages and not as long as usual- Shimizu apologises and he waves it off, because it honestly is no big deal for him. 

She still agrees to show up to practice after school, so apparently freezing him didn’t scare her off.

———

Kiyoko walks up to the second gym, the sound of balls flying and shoes squeaking already hitting her ears. She’ll admit she’s nervous, but Sawamura seemed very genuine and didn’t stare at her like she was boobs on legs, so she holds out hope.

She comes up to the door and knocks before letting herself in and introducing herself. 

“Hello, I’m Shimizu Kiyoko and I’m here to manage the team. Um, I don’t know much yet but once I do I’ll help this team to the best of my ability. Thank you for having me!”

The rest of the gym explodes into cheers. Kiyoko sees Sawamura, along with a taller brunette and someone with ashen hair smiling at her. She smiles back. 

For the first time since hurdling, she thinks she might’ve found a team again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to my wonderful beta-reader Sara!
> 
> This chapter was brought to you by special bread. 
> 
> As ever, please come and yell at me in the comments if there was anything you particularly enjoyed!!
> 
> Have a good week!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks! 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, and if you have things you wanna talk about just come and yell at me in the comments! There are so many random things in this i just want to express, ya know?
> 
> Thanks to Sara for cheerleading!


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